Sunday, February 26, 2012

Please pass the axe.



...then the awful fight began. (George Wright.)

From the Poetic Edda:


It sates itself on the life-blood
of fated men,
paints red the powers' homes
with crimson gore.
Black become the sun's beams
in the summers that follow,
weathers all treacherous.
Do you still seek to know? And what?

***

Brothers will fight
and kill each other,
sisters' children
will defile kinship.
It is harsh in the world,
whoredom rife
—an axe age, a sword age
—shields are riven—
a wind age, a wolf age—
before the world goes headlong.
No man will have
mercy on another

Thursday, February 23, 2012



The rain is falling, gently through the trees
A dove gives a mournful call
I wonder what he sees
Newborn child a-bawling?
Or just the futility of it all.
He told me once, a wise old owl
Very good advice, to get me through it all
The glass is either half-empty or half-full
It says a lot about you
The choices that you call.
The rain is falling, gently through the trees
A chipmunk sits there laughing
I wonder what he sees.

(Appears in Selected Poems, available from Smashwords and coming to other retailers soon.)

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Frozen in time.

Frozen in time
My guts still churn
Approaching absolute zero
Thoughts speed up, not slow down
The impenetrable gaze, of a Sphinx-like calm
Looking off into forever
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What happened to me?
Did I quest too far, in the search for truth?
Now I know, all there is to know
There is no one to share it with
‘Cause I’m the only one here
One last shiver, the spasm lasts an eternity
I have arrived
And now—and now I can never die
The price of living is death.
Oddly enough I never feared death
I prayed for death, I begged for death—but the answer was no.
For it was love itself, that I was afraid of.
It was my own love I was afraid of.
All of the mysteries are revealed
All has been lost in the quest for meaning.
The circle is complete, and now I will be reborn, and just in time to forget it all…to forget it all.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The city at night.

The cosmos favours no one for long
The stars hang above us
With the starkness of bones
White and dead
Once the framework of a man
We carry nothing with us
When we return from whence we came
Where then is the good?
The laws of God are inscribed upon the hearts of men
Deny this if you can
There is no escaping the sounds of the city at night
A place of masks
You shall soon see
I lay this upon you, oh desert son
Let me see the coming of the stars once again
Under them lies our fortune –
And our fate
The time has come—the waiting is done
The winds blow, the storm strikes
Expect no answers from me.

Inspired by the fantasies of Andre Norton.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

A humble aspiration.





When I got to a certain age, I began to reflect on some of the things that I had missed over the years. I'm convinced this is a common failing among men, but be that as it may, I came up with the proverbial 'bucket list.'

It was a time of introspection and self-examination, one not recommended for light entertainment.

Okay, so I never got married, never had kids, never had a long-term full-time job that lasted more than two or three years, and I still don't have any real prospects, and while I don't necessarily regret not being married, I do see the way parents look at their own children, with love and a kind of pride in their eyes and I sort of get it...no, really, I do.

It's just something that I'll have to get over. But there were certain things on the list. For one, I would like to get laid again before I die. Is that so bad? Seems pretty humble to me. Almost practical really, for all the guys that go postal and wind up in the news seem to be dealing with a kind of unspoken frustration, perhaps status-related.

At the top of the list, was a bicycle. That's right, a bicycle. That seems like a pretty humble aspiration, but another common failing is the longing, or the attempt to recapture lost youth.

I'll be honest with you, a bicycle is not very good for picking up chicks, but that wasn't the real purpose, although I may have joked about it from time to time. It gives people something to talk about.

In some ways it actually worked, for I did things and went places that I wouldn't have otherwise.

At about $400, to own one nice new thing, is not unreasonable. It really is better to ride a bike two blocks to the store once in a while.

On this particular day, I probably rode about twenty kilometres. I found the big tree I like, and said hello. I stayed away from the house for two or three hours, and sometimes that's important as well.

My needs are simple, and my wants are not complex.